> For six months, I played anti-depressant roulette, experimenting with> different pills and dosages.

Been there done that. Three times so far. :-< (meds can stop working
over time...)

> trying to fix your head with the drugs we> have available is like employing different trained chimps to try to
fix> your TV set [...] You probably won't get a good picture, but it might
be better> than the Terrible Noise.

it won't give up it wants me dead
goddamn this noise inside my head

> "I just found out I'm manic-depressive -- right now I'm> manic," she burbled, segueing into another monologue that would go on
for> 40 or more minutes before she'd take a full breath, usually in order
to put> some carbohydrates in her mouth.

"This submission to pills remains rather more politically incorrect than
one might think...

"That admitting to depression and taking medication for it can still be
the mark of a loser was brought home more recently at a party of
intellectuals and journalists. During a discussion of Salon, a very
senior editor of the newspaper I had quit to join the magazine declaimed
for all to hear "Well, I hope he's still taking his Prozac!" Yes, that
says more about this particular editor -- who is partial to hefty slugs
of Jack Daniel's on the rocks -- than it does about me. But it also
suggests that beneath the veneer of acceptance and understanding, there
remains a great deal of male scorn.

"I believe that these attitudes, and the chasm of ignorance about
depression, kill people. I believe that Vincent Foster, Adm. Jeremy
Boorda and journalist J. Anthony Lukas all died partly as a result of
them. Foster and Lukas reached out much too late, their years of
internalized shame having kindled a psychic conflagration that was out
of control. Can you imagine the obviously depressed Foster, in the
vicious, unforgiving arena in which he fought to survive, confessing
earlier to such weakness? Boorda went down with what he perceived to be
the sinking ship of his honor -- an irrational hopelessness that is so
typical of depressive illness."

- Joe

Joseph S. Barrera III (joebar@microsoft.com)http://research.microsoft.com/~joebar
Phone, Office: (415) 778-8227; Cellular: (415) 601-3719; Home: (415)
588-4801
The opinions expressed in this message are my own personal views and do
not reflect the official views of Microsoft Corporation.